Faculty
Professors
Michael A. Thomas, Ph.D.
Professor
Genome Biology
Office: Life Sciences 436
Research
Lab: Life Sciences 436
(208) 251-2396
Dr. Thomas leads a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate student researchers in investigations of bacteriophage biology and genomics. They explore questions involving bacteriophage host range, evolution, and host invasion. Bacteriophages have potential utility for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.
Teaching
BIOL 1111/1112 Bacteriophage Discovery & Bioinformatics Lab
BIOL 3358 Genetics
BIOL 4417/5517 Organic Evolution
BIOL 4491/4492 Senior Seminar
Graduate-level Seminars
Biographical Sketch
Dr. Thomas joined the Biological Sciences department in 2003. His interest in evolutionary biology has been a lifelong endeavor. His research interests mainly involve the evolution of genomes, in which he applies evolutionary theory and approaches to address a variety of problems, from understanding the evolution of alternative splicing to assessing the human health consequences of pharmaceuticals and nanomaterials in environmental systems.
Education
2000, Ph.D. Entomology, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA
1994, M.S. Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
1991, B.S. Biology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
2000-2003, Postdoctoral fellow, Rat genome project, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
Selected Publications
Michael A. Thomas, Gary W. Roemer, C. Josh Donlan, Brett G. Dickson, Marjorie Matocq, and Jason Malaney. 2013. Gene tweaking for conservation. Nature 501:485-486.
Luobin Yang, Steve C. Chiu, Wei-keng Liao & Michael A. Thomas. 2011. High Performance Data Clustering: A Comparison Analysis of Performance for GPU, RASC, MPI, and OpenMP Implementations. Journal of Supercomputing, 2012:3 DOI:10.1007/s11227-013-0906-y.
Sophie St-Hilaire, Victor O Ezike, Henrik Stryhn & Michael A Thomas. 2012. An ecological study on childhood autism. International Journal of Health Geographics 11:44. PMCID: PMC3504530.
Michael A. Thomas & Rebecca D. Klaper. 2012. Psychoactive Pharmaceuticals Induce Fish Gene Expression Profiles Associated with Human Idiopathic Autism. PLoS One. 7(6): e32917. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032917. PMCID: PMC3368908.
Peter Hallock and Michael A. Thomas. 2012. Integrating the Alzheimer's disease proteome and transcriptome: A comprehensive network model of a complex disease. OMICS. 16(1). PMID: 22321014, PMCID: PMC3275800
Benjamin M. Adams, Joseph B. Adams, Reganne L. Brewster, Michael S. Cutler, Anthony E. Davis, Abby H. Gallegos, Jeremy S. Hernandez, Luke H. May, Emma G. Montoya, Andrew T. Reagan, Jack F. Shurley, Anna S. Grinath, Michael A. Thomas. 2022. Annotation of the Complete Genome Sequences of Bacteriophages Sara and Birdfeeder. ASM Journals
Microbiology Resource Announcements
Vol. 11, No. 10.